From the plaintive twang of the Yueqin to the breathy mystery of the Kouxian mouth harp, explore the fiery soundscape of the Yi Torch Festival — where music ignites alongside flames on midsummer mountains.
The Yueqin (月琴) is a pear-shaped lute with a bright, plangent tone that cuts through mountain air. Yi Yueqin players use a distinctive fingerpicking technique that produces rapid ornamental flourishes around a steady rhythmic pulse. The instrument accompanies virtually every aspect of Torch Festival life — from wrestling matches to courtship dances to ancestor offerings.
Scene: Torch Festival plazas, wrestling competitions, evening dances
The Kouxian (口弦) is a tiny mouth harp — barely five centimeters long — that produces an eerie, whispering tone when plucked against the player's teeth. Yi tradition holds that the Kouxian can transmit secret messages between lovers across mountain valleys. During Torch Festival, young men and women engage in Kouxian duets, their instruments' fragile tones weaving intimate conversations amid the festival's general chaos.
Scene: Courtship gatherings, mountain clearings, torchlight circles
The 'Axi Jumping Under the Moon' — a circle dance accompanied by Sanxian and Yueqin that accelerates throughout the night until dancers collapse from exhaustion. The music features asymmetric rhythms (5/8 and 7/8 meters) that create a sense of perpetual forward momentum, as if the dancers might literally leap into the sky.
Scene: Main festival plaza, moonlit meadows, all-night celebrations
The Bimo (毕摩) are Yi priests who preserve oral scriptures, genealogies, and healing rituals. Their chanting combines sung narration with rhythmic speech, accompanied by small drums and rattles. During Torch Festival, Bimo ceremonies open the celebrations by invoking ancestral blessings and dispelling malevolent spirits — a reminder that beneath the festival's fiery exuberance lies a deep substratum of spiritual practice.
Scene: Opening ceremonies, sacred groves, ancestral altars
The Yi Torch Festival (火把节) is held on the 24th day of the sixth lunar month — the peak of summer, when mountain air is thinnest and stars seem closest. The festival’s defining image is thousands of pine torches illuminating mountain slopes against a black sky. The music serves as the acoustic counterpart to this visual spectacle — bright, urgent, and touched with danger.
For the Yi people, music is inseparable from fire. Both are understood as manifestations of the same spiritual force: transformative energy that purifies, protects, and renews. A Yi musician does not simply play an instrument; he or she channels fire into sound.
The Yueqin (月琴) used by Yi musicians differs from its Han Chinese counterpart in several key respects: the body is smaller and deeper, producing a more concentrated, piercing tone; the strings are thicker, allowing for aggressive plucking without breakage; and the repertoire emphasizes rapid ornamental figures that mimic bird calls, mountain streams, and wind patterns. A master Yi Yueqin player can make the instrument sound like a flock of startled birds taking flight.
The Kouxian (口弦) is one of the most ancient instruments in human civilization, with archaeological examples dating to 5000 BCE. The Yi version is particularly refined, with multiple vibrating tongues that allow for two-note chords. The sound is extraordinarily quiet — barely audible beyond a few meters — which is precisely the point. Kouxian music is for intimate communication, not public performance. During Torch Festival, young people use it to exchange messages too private for spoken language.
The Bawu (巴乌) is a free-reed pipe with a haunting, slightly nasal tone that Yi musicians describe as “the sound of mountains remembering.” Unlike the bright Dizi or the piercing Suona, the Bawu speaks in muted colors — suitable for evening gatherings when the day’s competitive energy has subsided into reflective calm.
The central musical event of the Torch Festival is the circle dance — hundreds of people holding pine torches, moving in concentric rings around a central bonfire. Yueqin and Sanxian players stand at the circle’s edge, providing rhythmic drive. The music accelerates as the night progresses, the tempo increasing almost imperceptibly until dancers find themselves moving faster than they thought possible. The circle becomes a vortex — music, fire, and human energy merging into a single collective organism.
Yi Torch Festival features traditional wrestling competitions, each match accompanied by its own musical sequence. A slow Yueqin introduction establishes the fighters’ identities and clan affiliations. As the match begins, drummers enter with accelerating patterns that mirror the combat’s intensity. Victory is announced with a distinctive rhythmic figure — a musical declaration recognized by the entire community.
After the public celebrations subside, young people disperse into mountain meadows for private musical gatherings. Here the Kouxian dominates — its whispered tones creating intimate sonic spaces amid the vastness of the mountain night. Traditional courtship involves musical challenges: a young man plays a Kouxian phrase; a young woman must respond with a complementary phrase. Successful musical dialogue may lead to further acquaintance; failure ends the interaction without social awkwardness.
Yi Torch Festival music navigates a complex path between tradition and modernization:
The music of the Yi Torch Festival ultimately reminds us that in certain cultures, the boundary between sound and fire, between music and ritual, between artist and shaman, was never firmly drawn — every note is a spark, and every performance is a kind of burning.